Mercury has now crossed the entire face of the sun and brought to a close the 2016 transit of the smallest planet in the solar system. The images astronomers have taken today have been truly breathtaking. I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did here on the (somewhat geeky) science desk.

As Dr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, put it, the transit is a special event: “It’s a chance to feel you are really part of the solar system in motion.” Thanks to all who watched with us. And see you again in 2019!

A silhouette of a plane and its contrails as seen from Frankfurt on Monday as Mercury passes in front of the sun. The innermost planet of the solar system is the tiny dark dot near the bottom and half way across the face of the sun.

An image taken with special foil mounted to the front of a 700-mm tele lens shows the planet Mercury as a tiny black spot on the sun and the silhouette of a plane with its contrails as seen from Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, 09 May 2016. Photograph: Patrick Pleul/EPA

In half an hour Mercury will have crossed the sun and completed its transit for 2016. Here’s the latest video footage from Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory showing Mercury passing swiftly over the boiling surface of the sun. And not a frozen pea in sight.

Of course, if you can’t get yourself to a high-end telescope with a solar filter, and have had enough of Nasa’s swanky satellite imagery, you can always recreate the transit of Mercury in the comfort of your own kitchen. Here’s what Poppy (aged 6¾) and Rufus (aged 3½) in South London did with a pizza base and a frozen pea. They’ve really captured the drama of the event.

The Flamsteed Astronomy Society is out in force at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich today. Here, society astronomer Mark Duwe, looks to the heavens as the clouds threaten to close in. Read Maev Kennedy’s full report from the scene.

Mark Duwe from Flamsteed Astronomy Society looks through a telescope at Mercury moving across the face of the sun at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich on May 9, 2016. Astronomers today were preparing for one of the highlights of the skywatchers’ year, when the Sun, Mercury and Earth all line up - a phenomenon that happens just a dozen or so times per century. Mercury will be seen through telescopes as a black dot inching over the face of our star, providing a celestial spectacle that will last seven and a half hours. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

A few minutes ago I spoke to David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes. He spent much of the morning peering through a telescope set up on the university’s Mulberry Lawn. Thanks to a dodgy weather forecast, the much-feared cloud cover failed to materialise early on, making for an exceptional morning of Mercury watching. “It was great to show Mercury’s silhouette to school kids and colleagues, and a thrill for me too given I’m involved in the next mission to fly there,” he said, the mission in question being BepiColombo, due to launch in 2018.

Jim Green, Nasa’s director of planetary science, has been talking on Nasa TV about the transit and Mercury itself. It’s hot enough to melt lead on the surface of the planet, but at the north pole there are craters with regions that are in permanent shadow. “We believe there is water and other volatiles in these permanently shadowed craters,” he said.

At the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, my colleague Maev Kennedy has grabbed a shot of the Great Equatorial Telescope trained on the sun for the first time since 1927. She is with astronomer Tom Kerss who is incredulous with delight that despite the forecast of 100% cloud cover, the skies above London have been dazzling.

The Royal Observatory’s Great Equatorial Telescope trained on the sun for the first time since 1927. Photograph: Maev Kennedy

Amateur astronomers in Germany watch the transit from the grounds of the Bergedorf observatory in Hamburg.

Amateur astronomers use their telescopes to watch planet Mercury passing in front of the sun, on the grounds of the Bergedorf observatory, in Hamburg, Germany, 09 March 2016. Photograph: DANIEL BOCKWOLDT/EPA